


Her hands were not soft.

by orphan_account



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Based mostly off @highinfibre’s headcanons, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 14:38:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20762000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: julian catches feelings oof





	Her hands were not soft.

Margot was smoking; one of the habits she’d picked up from him. Eyelids drooping from fatigue, she turned away from the gable, which looked over fields towards the main city, and breathed the contents of her lungs in Julian’s direction, causing him to scrunch up his face and sputter, grinning. It was growing continually more dark, and Julian could imagine soft lights emanating from similar rooms in the college and illuminating the landscape outside. 

Once the smoke had cleared, he lay on top of the covers again. This was her room; he wasn’t used to it. It was a miracle that he’d managed to sneak up here. 

He’d rarely been inside Girton before; his and Margot’s Rendezvous tended to be at his college, Trinity, or, to be perfectly honest, wherever they could find a spot for it. Girton’s feminine atmosphere, sometimes mistaken as relaxed, was laced with an undertone of the solemn determination of every student, because, as Margot had explained to him, the girls all felt they had to prove themselves far more than the men did. 

There were still sometimes cries of ‘Bluestocking!’ from some of the boys (Julian hated to admit to Margot that he knew most of them). Even some of the elderly fellows wore black arm-bands to protest female graduates. On the contrary, Julian liked being around women again; so many years at the all-boys Harrow had tired him. 

Stubbing out the cigarette, Margot sauntered towards the bed. She leaned towards Julian, catlike, her clear, long nails digging into the cotton sheets.  
Behind her, he gazed at the posters she had pinned up: the Beatles; the Rolling Stones; even some older music like Vera Lynn (“My parents loved ‘We’ll Meet Again’,” she’d told him, “Kept them going during the war.”). Margot smirked at him. Some people had commented that both of them were fox-like when they smiled.

“What do you want to do to me, Mister Fawcett? Or,” she paused, deliberately moving a lock of black hair behind her ear and flicking her eyes downwards, “What do you want me to do to you?”

Julian looked at her a while more but then plonked his head on the cool pillow again, staring straight at the ceiling. 

This was one of the first times they hadn’t senselessly dived into a room and gotten straight to it. During those moments, there was no deliberation, just impulses in the heat of the moment. Here he was, as fully dressed as she was, and he had time for thinking. 

He’d enjoyed the dinner he’d taken her out on- a cosy nook of a restaurant that was quieter than the extravagant affairs in the centre of the city. She had chosen some sort of lamb dish; his was beef. The meal had been promised jokingly months ago during their first intimate encounter (“let me take you out?”). He’d surprised her and whisked her to the place after she’d emerged from the library where they’d met. 

Julian tried to pass it off as just completing his joke - Margot’s shock at him pulling her away in her study clothes towards a cab had quickly turned to laughter. The decision to even take her out was because of a voice in his head that compelled him to. 

It’s not that he didn’t like the voice; he just found it inconvenient. For weeks he tried to kid himself- it’s just sex, isn’t it?

“Nothing?” 

Bollocks. Margot was still looking at him, but the hunger in her eyes was fading. 

“You take me out to eat for once and you’re suddenly not into me? Is my eating that messy?” She teased. 

“Bah-b-buh.. it’s not that I’m not into you, Margot, certainly not.” said Julian, struggling with his words, the last remnants of a childhood stutter creeping up on him at the worst time. He turned his head to the ceiling once more, feeling too embarrassed to look her in the eyes. 

“Maybe we could - I know I sound like a dolt here - why don’t you just lie down next to me?” 

He could hear the crisp sheets rustling as Margot climbed onto the bed. It was a small contraption, barely big enough for the two of them, but it was cool and comfortable. Then he could smell her, a mix of her perfume (the bottle of which, small and rose-coloured, nestled on her bedside table next to a stack of books) and the scent of Girton itself, scholarly and dusty, which clung to all the girls that graced its corridors. 

“Are you being a little sentimental here, Julian?”

He tried to bite back, but it became more of a chatter due to the stutter.

“N-no.”

There they lay for a little while, not talking. It was the most peaceful rest Julian had had since starting his degree. Almost without thinking, he felt himself take Margot’s hand in his own. He was surprised to find that they were not as baby smooth as he imagined. The roughness may have hailed back to a childhood of tree-climbing and sword-fighting, or perhaps afternoons of woodwork at Roedean (did they offer that to girls?). It would be something to find out from her in the future, why her hands were not soft.

No, he was the soft one.


End file.
